Corona Virus Testing (US)

Visualizations

Tests performed

Figure 1. To assess the increasing COVID-19 testing in the US, the number of new tests reported each day are summarized below.

Figure 2. The cumulative number of tests performed to date.

Figure 3. Change in test capacity from previous day

Positive cases

Figure 4. The number of new positive cases reported each day are summarized below.

Figure 5. The cumulative number total positive cases reported to date.

Positive test rate

Figure 6. This graph shows the rate of positive tests observed out of all the tests performed on that same day. As the testing capacity increases we might start to see more people getting test who have less obvious symtoms, more people being tested out of caution, or to assure safety for working with the public, etc. If that is the case we might see the positive test rate start to drop as testing become widely available. On the other hand, if infection in the community is already widespread we might not see as much of a drop here.

Figure 7. This graph is similar to the previous one but shows the cumulative positive test rate. We should see a similar trend here that as the pandemic passes and testing becomes widely available, the number of negative results will accumulate while the number of positive results slows. Over time, if the outbreak is contained this number should drop. On the other hand, if the outbreak continues to spread, many positives will continue to accumulate. If the rate of community infection is already high or continues to grow, this rate could actually still increase in the coming weeks.

Deaths

Figure 8. Number of new deaths observed each day. Pretty self explanatory. We want this to trend downwards…

Figure 9. Number of new deaths observed each day compared to estimated number of deaths per day from other common causes. Other causes of death are based on the CDC leading causes of death report for 2017 (annual death number / 365 to determine the average daily number for each cause). Also note that for some of the lower causes of death the CDC report does not provide a total count and I compiled it from the ethnicity comparison (table D). This will underestimate deaths from liver disease, septicemia, hypertension, and assault. The estimated deaths from other causes have been adjusted to account for ~2% population increase since 2017.

Figure 10. Cumulative deaths observed to date.

Figure 11. Cumulative deaths observed to date compared to other causes of death (annual numbers). This has similar caveats to the plot above comparing daily deaths from covid to other common causes.

Death rate

Figure 12. The overall cumulative apparent death rate. An overall estimate of the deadliness of the disease. As testing becomes more widespread and larger numbers of people are tested (even those with less severe symptoms) this number will hopefully drop. In the early days of the outbreak, many of those tested were presumably those with the worst symptoms. This contributes to a very high apparent fatality rate. As testing becomes more widespread, this rate should drop. However, unless testing becomes very widespread and systematic, it will probably always overestimate the true lethality of the disease because some will get the virus, remain healthy and never get tested.